FDR's cuisine does not follow the French entrée-main-dessert grid, but the rhythm of an early 20th-century American great house. The main meal (dinner) is traditionally taken in the middle of the day, followed by a lighter supper in the evening. To this are added two very American institutions: the outdoor cookout, where you grill in shirtsleeves, and the cocktail hour, a social moment where drinks and conversation mix. Homemade preserves complete the year by putting summer fruits in jars for winter.

FDR, despite his patrician rank, loved to cook himself at the table in a chafing dish: Sunday scrambled eggs, children's hour cocktails. This claimed informality — the head of state serving sausages to a king — is his true culinary signature.